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Daily Report: Working Behind the Scenes for a Twitter Payday

By The New York Times November 8, 2013 6:31 amNovember 8, 2013 6:31 am

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Suhail R. Rizvi runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter, with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday. Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including a Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan Chase’s wealthiest clients, Alexandra Stevenson and Nicole Perlroth report.

Twitter’s successful opening also made gushing winners out of the usual suspects, including its co-founders, Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams, and a spate of more traditional tech investors. But Mr. Rizvi’s rise illustrates how a new tech investor class with deep Wall Street connections is carving new paths into the unfamiliar and insular terrain of Silicon Valley.

Traditionally, stalwart venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Accel Partners use their location in Silicon Valley and their sizable funds to buy a piece of a start-up and have a hand in the company’s direction. And Benchmark Capital and Spark Capital, two such companies, did get sizable pieces of Twitter.

But Mr. Rizvi and others like him have formed a network of investors, including prominent mutual fund companies like Fidelity, T. Rowe Price and BlackRock, that sometimes have even deeper pockets and a willingness to buy smaller pieces and assume no management control. Read more »